SCIENCE: Webmd is Worse than Puberty

This morning, I had a bit of a health scare. The details are truly disgusting, so I won't go into them, but suffice it to say that my digestion is implicated.

Thinking that I might convince myself I was 100% healthy, I went to webmd...where, as with every other time I have ever gone there, I was almost immediately, 100% convinced that I was dying, or, if not that, suffering from an autoimmune disorder which will wreck the rest of my now-going-to-be-awful life.

Of course this conviction threw my stomach and "gut-brain" into tumult...further proving to me that I do, in fact, have Crohn's or something similarly miserable.

But the real facts in the case are that a.) I don't know what, if anything, was wrong b.) I probably won't act on the problem unless it repeats itself soon and c.) all I managed to do was possibly guarantee that it WILL come back again. Like I said, my digestion was implicated.

Sites like Webmd, where I am allowed, nay, encouraged to self-diagnose with a symptom-checker, are cruel and unusual, at least to the obsessive, neurotic, and anxiety-ridden, like myself. Really, though, if you're using them, I'd wager you're in the same boat, the one where you think to yourself "that blood in my ear probably IS a tumor!" instead of remembering that you had an ear-zit.

There is a benefit to these sites, of course, a very clear one - for example, in the past, an equally I-won't-visit-a-doc-for-it problem was whittled down to either motion sickness, an option I wasn't really on board with, as I was sitting on my non-moving couch, or an ear infection, something which Webmd informed me doesn't actually need antibiotics in most cases, they're just prescribed so children won't have to suffer longer than necessary. This kept me out of the doc's office for a good reason, and quelled my fears of permanent hearing loss at the same time.

But for god's sake, sometimes a little information is a VERY dangerous thing - rather than letting myself believe I have ulceritic colon, could you folks at Webmd just put up a "this symptom NEEDS a doctor" sign for certain things? At least then, I'll know when I really SHOULD worry unnecessarily as I put off calling for an appointment.

-Posted by Jilly